The Last Rain

by Edeet Ravel

  The Northern Police Force immediately brought in hundreds of police officers to search the area. It is believed that the infiltrators came from Lebanon. Local scouts and search dogs were used in the search and escape routes were blocked. The Israeli delegation to the Israel-Lebanon Armistice Commission informed the Observers of the event and will submit a strongly worded complaint to the Chairman of the Commission.

  —Davar, 23 September, 1955

  Meron Killers Came from Lebanon, Had Local Assistance

  Four local trackers, accompanied by U.N. Observers, crossed the border into Lebanon in pursuit of the killers who attacked the bus near Meron. According to the latest information, the Thursday attack was carried out by four men. A large-scale search led to the discovery of two warehouses in the vicinity, one containing Sten guns and the other Bern rifles and hundreds of bullets. The bullets match those removed from the victims. According to reliable sources, there is no truth to the rumour that the infiltrators scattered landmines as they retreated. The police extended their search to minority villages and arrested four men from Rehaniya.

  An American tourist was killed in the attack. David Barak, whose father was killed by the Nazis, was engaged to a resident of Jaffa. He was planning to marry his fiancée after the Day of Atonement and settle in Israel. He exchanged words of Torah with a fellow passenger during the entire trip. When the shots rang out at 7:05, the driver turned off the lights and struggled to bring the vehicle to a halt even though he was bleeding. One of the passengers, Yakov Gisheid, from Sfat Emet Yeshiva in Jerusalem, called for everyone to lie on the floor. Shortly afterwards, truck driver Dov Horan entered the bus and, with the help of Mr. Gisheid, carried everyone out of the bus. Two more cars passed; the first quickly left the scene while the other, a military vehicle, stopped and helped transport the wounded.

  The second fatality, Malka Granot, 29, of Eldar, was laid to rest today in the Mount Eldar cemetery. Malka Granot boarded the bus at Kibbutz Eldar and sat near the driver. She was born in Paris, came to Israel at age three and studied in Jerusalem to be a teacher. She leaves behind Danny, five, and Ruti, two and a half. Her husband Eliezer, a member of Eldar, is a writer with a forthcoming book of poems. Malka Granot fought in the battle for Jerusalem during the War of Independence.

  —Davar, 25 September 1955

  Dori

  I ask Skye whether the earth is spinning so fast we can’t feel it or so slow we can’t feel it. My brother David said fast but someone else said slow. I asked Daddy but I didn’t understand his answer. He doesn’t like questions about the planet.

  Skye says the earth is spinning very fast which gives us day and night and it moves even faster around the sun which gives us a year. She says you can’t feel it moving because everything else is moving too and the reason you don’t fall into space is gravity.

  I already know about gravity—though I don’t understand why an apple gave Newton the idea. He saw things fall all the time.

  William Tell is another person I don’t understand. Why would anyone take a chance like that?

  III

  The Last Rain

  I will give you the rain of your land in its season, the First Rain and the Last Rain, that you may gather in your grain, your sweet wine, your pure oil.

  —DEUTERONOMY 11:14

  Dori

  Oh no! Not another thorn! I don’t know how I get these thorns. I had a thorn in Camp Bilu’im and Daddy had to burn a needle to kill the germs. Then he used the needle to take it out and it hurt. We still have that black needle.

  I tell Daddy I have a thorn but I don’t want him to take it out. He says he has to bring clothes to the laundry so we’ll do that first.

  It’s fun in the laundry. There are holes in the floor and Daddy tells me what to throw in each one. The clothes get washed and ironed under the floor. Simon’s mother works down there. She comes up to say hello.

  When we’re finished Daddy looks at the thorn and says it’s only half under the skin so maybe Dafna can pull it out and then it won’t hurt. The whole way to Dafna I’m hoping.

  We get to the infirmary and Dafna says she thinks she can pull it out with tweezers. Tweezers. A very good thing those tweezers. Dafna pulls and out it comes!

  I’m a very lucky girl today.

  Our First Year

  27 May 1949. For a number of weeks a crew has been working on the pipeline of three and a half kilometers which will bring us water from the wadi that lies to the south-west of the village. It won’t be a great deal, just enough to take care of our cooking and washing needs. Today the last section of the pipe was placed, and in the evening there was a party and a good old slapstick skit commemorating certain construction incidents.

  The water problem still looms as one of our chief worries. We expect the experts, including Professor Picard, to make investigations in the area shortly.

  Dori

  Carmella tells us we’re going on a Hike. We all get happy. Shoshana takes us on Hikes but they’re very short. We visit the cows and the carpentry shop and then we go back. We hardly see nature at all.

  This Hike is nice and long. It’s on a road with fields full of wildflowers and wheat-stalks. I love the wheat-stalks. I love to pull them out and feel them on my face. There’s the kind that feel like straw and the kind you can hold at the bottom and push up and all the pieces come off together.

  This is the best Hike of my life. Everything is beautiful. There’s a whole field of red anemones! Shiny red with black in the middle. Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll even see a cyclamen under a rock.

  We stop at a waterfall. Carmella sits on a rock and shows us how to make cups out of paper and we all drink water. Running water is safe to drink.

  Carmella says she’s too tired to get up. She asks one of us to fill her cup and bring her water. I really like this Carmella.

  Minders

  In one study, only one of twenty Minders rated at the “excellent” level in a competency test based on the YG Federation’s educational standards, including patience, understanding and commitment. Six rated very low, and one was seen to be a “tragic error.”49

  Dori

  My brother David tells me there’s going to be a movie near the carpentry shop. I’m on my way to the Room but I go with him instead. It’s Saturday so I don’t have to worry. On Saturdays we have the whole afternoon and evening to visit our parents.

  Maybe the movie will be Popeye. I love Popeye. I love his funny voice and how he always saves Olivoil. I’m Popeye the sailor man I’m Popeye the sailor man—ta dum ta da dum ta da dum ta da dum—I’m Popeye the sailor man.

  I help with putting the chairs in rows. Then we have to wait for the projector. It’s a long wait.

  Then the projector arrives but it’s not working and someone has to come and fix it. I’ve never been so bored in my life. David is talking to his friends. Lulu shows up but then she leaves. She doesn’t want to wait.

  Finally the movie starts. It’s called For Him the Bell Tells. I sit next to David so he can explain it to me. First a train explodes then a lot of Enemy soldiers chase two men with their rifles. Then one of the men gets shot and his friend has to kill him because he’s going to die anyway. Then there’s another explosion and parts of the ceiling fall down. After that there’s a very long conversation. Very long. All David says is now they’re talking which I can see for myself.

  I leave and run to the Room. When I get there Daddy says it’s time to go back.

  That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m completely fed up. I have a big tantrum.

  A tantrum means you lie down in the doorway on your back and cry as loud as you can. The rule in Eldar is to ignore a child who has a tantrum. Just wait until the child gets tired.

  That’s fine with me. The longer I can keep up my tantrum the longer I get to stay in the Room. So I’ll miss supper. So what.

  Drinking and Crying

  Dori

  In Galron we get to make buns on Fridays. You braid the dough and put o
n egg yolk with your fingers and poppy seeds and Carmella bakes it in the oven. Then out it comes—a delicious bun. You can eat it or take it as a present to your parents.

  That’s hard to decide. Very hard. I eat half and save the other half for Daddy. But he only takes a very small bite. He says it’s delicious and tells me to eat the rest.

  I’m not as nice as Lulu. She shares her little round box of candies with me even though they’re just for her. I’m not sure where her parents find the candies or how they’re allowed to give their child candies that are just for her. My favourites are the pink ones with almonds inside.

  The truth is that if my parents gave me a treat I wouldn’t share it with Lulu. I wouldn’t share it with anyone. That’s the truth.

  Our First Year

  3 June 1949. The garage is finished—a construction of aluminum sheeting on I-beams salvaged from the village. It’s located in one of our oldest olive groves, some of whose trees we’re told were planted in the days of Caesar. Imagine one of the old boy’s phalanxes in our garage …

  Dori

  School is a lot of fun. We go on long Hikes or we play in the yard or we play indoors. We copy words. Then we go back to playing. I can write my name now but I can’t read it.

  Everyone says that Gilead pulled out a child’s fillings playing dentist but I don’t know if it’s true. I’m not sure a child can pull out a filling.

  My brother David and Noam and Amnoni have been singing a mischievous song lately—

  Yes we are cavaliers

  Though we have no horses

  If you ask on what we ride

  We ride on our lasses

  The song makes them laugh but I don’t understand why. Why is it mischievous to ride on lasses? Maybe it means sex but how is sex mischievous and how is riding like sex? You do sex standing up.

  Diary of a Young Man50

  29 January 1922. Since we’ve established our commune, new people have come to join us daily. They’re all “Shomrim” [members of Young Guard] from every corner of the world; some were part of the Tiberius road “work brigade,” some came from the Hartiya road, others from the Afula-Nazareth road.

  Our camp, white and sparkling, stands proudly on the slopes of the Carmel. We are three to four per tent; a few boards around a central pole serve as our table, and the beds are our chairs; in the young women’s tent there’s a white tablecloth, a vase of flowers, glowing pictures and a polished lamp.

  Our only work is paving the road from the new [Jewish] neigh-bourhood [Neve Sha’anan on Mount Carmel] to the city [the lower part of Haifa]. The work is arduous, but most of us are veteran road workers and we’re used to it.

  Dori

  Some children have teeny-tiny dolls. As small as my fingernail. I don’t know where they come from. I really want a doll like that so I asked Daddy next time he goes to the city to buy me one.

  He bought me a doll but it’s way too big! It’s the size of my finger not my fingernail. I cry and say no no I wanted a teeny-tiny doll! He laughs and says I couldn’t find a smaller one.

  I feel bad when he says that. He looked and looked but he couldn’t find. And now I’m complaining instead of being happy.

  He says he’ll make me a chair and a bed for the doll. We go to the garage and get metal. Daddy cuts the metal with special scissors and bends it with pliers and makes little chairs and tables and beds. We put the doll furniture on a wooden tray. I’m happy for real now. The dolls are a little too big but they have wonderful furniture. And Daddy made it.

  Our First Year

  22 June 1949. Two of us got up at 4:30 this morning to dust the vines.

  An early rising in the kibbutz is always tough but also refreshing: deserted grounds and a brilliant sunrise, the clean empty kitchen into which one stumbles rubbing one’s eyes, the Primus humming away and the sleepy-eyed cook and first helper moving heavily about; something different, usually a bit better to eat; and that rare atmosphere of intimacy and unanimity, of calmness and order, before the hectic day explodes.

  We used portable back and stomach dusters. The stuff puffs its way out in a foggy little cloud and settles on the leaves like powdered sugar being lightly sprinkled on doughnuts.

  Amazing to think that this yellowish powder—consisting of sulphur, lime, and sodium fluo-something-or-other—is going to keep these beautiful, green, carved platters of leaves from being attacked by various insidious insects and diseases.51

  Dori

  Lulu has chicken pox. Shoshana tapes sticking plaster with our name on it to the back of our plates and tells us not to touch Lulu. But Daddy says you can’t have chicken pox twice and it’s better to have it when you’re little.

  If I get chicken pox Mummy and Daddy will be able to visit me right in the middle of the day. So when I play cards with Lulu on her bed and no one’s looking I touch her pyjamas.

  I hope it works.

  Baby Diary

  November 23

  Didn’t eat anything from Edna at 2:00. Only ate a drop of pudding and refused the rest. Simply shut her mouth …

  Very sociable. Laughs at everyone—also at the children next to her, Simon, Niv.

  Dori

  I have chicken pox. Everyone has it except for Skye because she had it in Boston. This morning she had to go to Galron all by herself.

  Now she’s back. She’s showing off the puppet she made there. The puppet has a red satin gown that covers your hand when you hold it. She says we had so much fun today so much fun over and over and over. We all feel bad that we missed making puppets but we pretend not to care.

  I don’t like having chicken pox. I feel sick and thirsty all the time and my spots are itchy. But at least Mummy and Daddy were in and out all day long.

  Diary of a Young Man

  5 February 1922. Yesterday at the Meeting we had a lengthy discussion about our attitude to work. There are those who claim that we, the Shomrim, must be extra punctilious, because there are still stories circulating about Shomrim who go out to work and, when they should be paying attention to their tools, Nietzsche and Freud pour forth instead from their bosom.

  Others feel that it doesn’t matter what people say; we must direct our efforts first and foremost to creating a new society and living our collective lives in the most profound way possible.

  Dori

  We all have worms. Everyone except Skye.

  The way to get rid of worms is an enema. Daddy takes me to the infirmary and fills my tushi with soapy water. I run to the toilet and out comes all the water. With the worms I hope.

  My brother David has another method. You put lots of soap and water on a piece of toilet paper and then you stick it in your tushi. I’ll try that next time.

  Skye’s grandmother in Boston sent her a necklace with a gold heart. The only thing we’re allowed to have that’s our own in the Children’s House is our toothbrush because of germs and our shoes and slippers because someone else’s wouldn’t fit. But that bracelet could fit anyone.

  But it’s only Skye’s.

  Transcript of the Social Committee Meeting December 1961

  Chair:

  Gila

  Present:

  Martin, Shula, Lou, Varda, Hanan, Ora

  Gila:

  The question we have to decide on is whether or not

  to suggest a reassessment of our personal property

  policy at the Meeting, and if so, what sort of changes

  we propose. There have been a lot of hard feelings lately

  about gifts individual members are getting, especially

  the Israeli members, who bring things back with them

  almost every weekend.

  Ora:

  I don’t know why you’re always picking on the sabras.

  You guys get plenty of gifts from home.

  Lou:

  Either way, as the standard of living rises, maybe we can

  afford to be more flexible.

  Varda:

  True. Remember the fus
s about the two kerosene lamps

  that you-know-who found in one of the Arab houses!

  Two lousy kerosene lamps, I think we discussed it until

  2 a.m.

  Martin:

  Luckily we’re more enlightened now.

  Lou:

  Why don’t we look at what people are keeping for them-

  selves and then get a general overview of what we’re

  dealing with. It’s just too abstract otherwise. There’s a

  difference between a guitar and a watchstrap.

  Varda:

  But how detailed are we going to get? Some things really

  are irrelevant. And by the way, don’t think I haven’t